Fossils

[Sandera]

Hello!
I've collected some odd bits of organic material , leaves, etc. to experiment with. I've seen a great site - glass-fossils-glass-fossil.pdf - that shows you how to use organic materials as inclusions and to create quite ghostly effects. It even gives a firing schedule although it's a bit vague. What I would like to know is:

have you done anything similar and if so,
how quickly should you heat up the glass to completely burn off the material? and
at what point and for how long do you have to vent?

Have only done a little bit of inclusion work (copper foil) so it's all a bit of a mystery to me.

I'd be grateful for any pearls of wisdom you could throw my way!

Sandera

[Pat from Canvey]

I did try fusing some leaves between sheets of agricultural glass about 20 years ago but was never very impressed with the results. I can't find the samples now to show you. I seem to recall that the thicker pieces of leaf produced better results. I just used the same schedule I used for other fusing. Have a go because agricultural glass in very cheap. Copper inclusions work well and you can reproduce leaf shapes by laying the leaf on a piece of thicker polystyrene and outline the leaf with pins to keep the wire in shape as you follow the outline. Sorry can't be of more help. I also found that if you put very tiny pieces of the same glass around the edges to prop up the top glass, then the number of bubbles formed was less because the central glass tender to slump a short time before the edges thus allowing any fumes to escape and not become trapped in the glass.

[Pat from Canvey]

There's also this method, http://smullis7.blogspot.com/2010/03/fossil-vitrea-fused-glass.html

[Sandera]

Thanks for the link and the tip about putting small bits of glass in to allow the material to burn off. I will just have to bite the bullet and experiment. When you say agricultural glass is that pretty much the same as float glass?

Sandera

[Pat from Canvey]

It's cheaper but has a slight greenish tinge but not so much as you'd notice. It's used for greenhouses and used to come in 2 x 2 ft squares round our way. Good for experimenting though.

[Margram]

Thank you Pat for that link - it mentions the use of aluminium ventilation tape for
cut-outs - cool tip which I intend to try!